Around noon today, Tony Lauro found a large pale falcon hunting over the fields between Sound Avenue, Hulse Landing Road and Route 25A in Calverton near Riverhead (Suffolk Co.). Hugh McGuinness and I beat our way through the Sunday traffic and ever worsening rain to find Tony and a small crowd of Long Island birders looking at the falcon perched on a tall power (or phone) pole.
Some grainy, but I hope useful, photos are posted on my South Fork blog: http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/2009/12/extralimital-pale-falcon-brings.html It was a fantastic looking (1st-year?) bird, very pale gray bordering on white. Within minutes of our arrival the falcon made a couple spectacular dives in pursuit of Mouring Doves and had apparently been doing this for a while. The tentative identification by Tony and initially endorsed by all was a pale-morph *GYRFALCON*. However, some of us felt that subtle aspects did not fit our expectations but more on this later. Our elation was short lived when we got a better chance to study the legs which had been obscured by the tops of the poles or the bird's tail in most views. Little-by-little we realized that it had leather ankle bracelets and this was confirmed as it came into land after one of its sorties. Drat! An escaped falconry bird. Tony Lauro took the disappointing news with grace and most folks soon headed for their cars to escape cold and unrelenting rain. Hugh and I lingered for a bit trying to get photo-documentation of the offending leg ornaments. Over the next 20-30 mins we witnessed a couple more flights including an amazing high speed streak right over the farm buildings we were hiding behind. Escape or not, this is one fast bird! Hugh raised the possibility of a hybrid, possible a Gyr x Saker cross, rather than a pure Gyr based on the sleeker profile and noticeably pale head. The considerable activity of the bird also seemed a bit unusual based on our collective but limited experience. Obviously these are subjective criteria and as has been mentioned before, the identification of hybrids (there are several popular combos) is difficult. More research is needed. Assuming I've correctly aged the bird as a 1st-yr based primarily on the crisp edges to the scapulars and wing coverts, then the yellow rather than blue feet may also indicate a hybrid. There are two lessons here, first that large falcon ID is not necessarily straightforward and second, that birds need to be studied carefully; even something as seemingly obvious as the presence of leather straps around both legs may not be revealed immediately. One or two photos are not necessarily sufficient and must always be evaluated alongside the details noted by the observers. Anyway, we all enjoyed the bird tremendously and thank Tony for not only getting the word out immediately but for staying on the bird to make sure we all saw it. No doubt people will be looking for the bird over the next few days and reports, positive or negative are encouraged. -- Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
